Washington State Republican Party chairman Susan Hutchison, center, speaks with media members against a new city income tax on the wealthy that was approved earlier at a Seattle City Council meeting as demonstrators holding signs in favor protest behind.

Washington State Republican Party chairman Susan Hutchison, center, speaks with media members against a new city income tax on the wealthy that was approved earlier at a Seattle City Council meeting as

King County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison waves to passing motorists near University Village on election day. She lost the non-partisan post to Dow Constantine.

King County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison waves to passing motorists near University Village on election day. She lost the non-partisan post to Dow Constantine.

Photo: Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com

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Susan Hutchison, Washington State GOP chairman, is resigning. She has been a strong supporter of President Trump.

Susan Hutchison, Washington State GOP chairman, is resigning. She has been a strong supporter of President Trump.

Photo: KOMO

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Connelly: Susan Hutchison quits State Republican Chairman post

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Washington's State Republican Party Chairman Susan Hutchison, who embraced Donald Trump as he was spurned by prominent state Republicans, is resigning the party leadership she's held for nearly five years.

The Republican State Committee has the job of picking a successor when it meets January 20 in Moses Lake.

"The Washington State Republican Party is in a robust financial position with a bright future," Hutchison said in a statement.

"I expect that 2018 will result in many exciting wins for the GOP in our state -- among them, Dino Rossi will hold the 8th Congressional seat, the Republicans will move into leadership in the state House of Representatives by flipping at least one seat, and there might even be some surprises in the State Senate."

In a letter to state committee members, she added: "I have loved this job and the people with whom I am privileged to work."

Hutchison is a former longtime news anchor at KIRO-TV. She ran for King County Executive, a non-partisan office, in 2009 but was defeated by Dow Constantine. She was elected to the top GOP job when predecessor Kirby Wilbur left to join the New America's Foundation.

Hutchison has steered a party that has made gains in local offices, while watching Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee easily win reelection in 2016.

Hutchison came out for Trump when the GOP nominee-to-be made May, 2016, appearances in Spokane and Lynden. At the time, Trump talked about making Washington and Oregon competitive in the fall election.

She confronted Sen. Ted Cruz at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, calling Cruz "a traitor to the party" for a speech in which he failed to support Trump. Hutchison later said Cruz had "redeemed" himself when he came aboard the Trump campaign.

The Washington State Republican Party website carried stern statements by Hutchison that Trump was indeed the Republican nominee and that the party unabashedly supported him.

The election saw Hillary Clinton carry the state -- thanks to a 500,000 vote margin in King County -- while Murray and Inslee were reelected. Down ballot, and outside of Seattle, however, Republicans scored major victories.

They flipped the Pierce County Executive's office, scored county council wins in Snohomish and Pierce Counties, elected county commissioners in once-Democratic southwest Washington counties, and took a State House seat that Democrats had held for decades.

In 2017, however, Republicans lost control of the Washington State Senate despite spending millions of dollars on a special election in the 45th District of east King County.

The Republicans ran a campaign that sought to demonize liberal Seattle -- one ad featured the statue of Lenin in Fremont -- and even tried to tie Democrat Manka Dhingra to Trotskyist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant.

The campaign flopped. Dhingra, a King County Deputy Prosecutor, captured the Republican-held Senate seat by a 55-45 percent margin.

Columnist Joel Connelly has written about politics for the P-I since 1973.